The city is a place known for its clean streets, the structure being perfect for its function and having modern infrastructure. The reality of this "cookie cutter" image that is portrayed to the world by cities might just be imagination.
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| High Street San Fernando: 09/04/2013 The city as seen in the picture above is actually a polluted area where bins are filled to capacity and commuters toss their waste on the pavement and edge of roads. Also spending a day in San Fernando, during peak midday traffic the exhaust fumes were clearly noticeable which showed the air pollution problem as well. Is the city aesthetics all that its made out to be? |
THEORY
According to (Blowers and Pain 1999) cities consume three-quarters of the world's resources and create the most waste and pollution in the world. Therefore cities are major contributors to the global environmental problems. Right now, urban dwellers in the Global South is increasing and this will affect the demand on the environment by these dwellers.
In comparison the Global North (Haughton and Hunter 1994) usually produce twice as much waste per day than the Global South. Now it is seen that these cities do not get resources locally anymore but from around the world. This being said the pollution that is generated is now being felt globally. This is echoed when (Haughton and Hunter 1994) says
" Cities are the centre for the creation and redistribution of major environmental externalities"
Then you have to look the issue of sustainability in cities and if the environmental capacity is reaches then that can compromise development. For example a non-renewable resource can become depleted and can affect development on a local and global scale. (Mohan 1999) argues that these limits and capacities of the environment are dependent on if one adopts a precautionary or robust stance.
There is also an arguement on sustainability that is put forward by Brundtland World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) which states
"development that meets the needs of the present without comprising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs.''
Therefore the city can be seen as a key building block for creating a sustainable world. The cities have affected the environmental development and if not looked at seriously will in turn affect the urban development. So it can be seen that in the future that this sustainability and how it can interlink cities and the environment will be a highlight of urban geography soon to come.
The Video
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The References
Blowers A. and Pain R. (1999). "The sustainable city", in Pile S., Brook C. and Mooney G. Unruly cities? Order/disorder, London: Routledge/ Open University.
Haughton G. and Hunter C. (1994). Sustainable cities. London: Regional Studies Association.
Mohan J. (1999). A United kingdom? Economic, social and political geographies. London: Arnold.
I have been privileged to be in and around San Fernando and it has hurt to see how our citizens treat the area with the level of pollution seen. It is really a necessity that something is changed about this immediately!!
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